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Dessert

Silver Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, cream, flour, sugar, eggs, soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Silver Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine yolks of twelve eggs, five cups of flour, three cups of white sugar, one cup of butter, one and a half cups of cream or milk, a half teaspoon of soda, and one teaspoon of cream tartar.

  2. Beat the eggs with the sugar.

  3. Stir in the butter, softened by the fire.

  4. Dissolve the soda.

  5. Sift the cream tartar with one cup of the flour.

  6. Mix all together.

  7. Sift and stir in the rest of the flour.

Bake

  1. Place the batter in a deep loaf pan.

  2. Bake the cake as a Marbled Cake.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

735Calories
20 gProtein
23 gFat
109 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog]. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, with the yolks adding moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's rise and shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the cake a tender, fine crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, richness and flavour.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Bake soon after the soda goes in. Baking soda reacts with the acid in cream of tartar as soon as it is wet, releasing gas that lifts the batter. If the batter stands too long before baking, much of that lift is lost, leaving a denser cake.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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